It is strange being a Stay-at-home-Dad. For instance a chant of "ihopeiwinatoaster, ihopeiwinatoaster" floating up the basement steps. My nearly seven [eight] (now nine) ((now ten)) [[eleven]] {twelve} year-old twin boys concoct, devise, arrange, invent, write, say, imagine and dream the damndest things. Things that make me wonder. Ideas and stories that I may think on for days after I encounter them. I'll share some here. They made me do this.
Essential. Childhood. Nonsense. Explained.

Friday, January 22, 2016

I Am But A Bear

I am but a bear,
not even a fur and bone bear, I am a stuffed bear. I am brown, or
tan, and I have a red bow-tie. I guess it is red, I don't really see
colors very well, except in the eyes of childrens.

I am the size of a
newforn child. I have never met a newforn. I have seen them in the
arms of the Big Ones. I have moved on because of one. They can't
see us right. Babies can. And, of course the childrens can see us
right.

I understand some
things about the grownout world. It is where the children end up. I
do not understand numbers or time. I see patterns. One
light-to-light might be called a "day" to you Big Ones. To
us it could be all of everything. It could be our only time with a
children. From one coldtime to the next coldtime we spend under a
bed seems an instant, which is also a forever... it is
hard to explain.

I am not good with
names. I try and try to believe that things are called other than
what they are. That you Big Ones have labeled everything there is.
That is a very brave thing to do, I think. So, I do not know what we
are called. Because I am not good with names.

There are
other-ones-like-me. A kitten used to be with me here. She said her
labelname was "Kitty." It was because she was. I work
very hard to remember her. She was smart and kind. She had to go
finally. She waited in a box and talked with me for a some part of
time I don't know. And then she stopped answering my questions. I
knew she moved on. It is sad for me right now to think of. And, I
am a happy bear, mostly. She was a callicoed kitten. She gave a
labelname to us, she called us Stuffers.

She called me
BearBear because I am. My Boy calls me that. I can understand it.
It is not too very hard to remember. My boy says it a lot. I don't
always remember the name that is for My Boy. It sounds sizzly like a
bacon noise. My Boy likes bacon. He likes the smell of it and the
way it makes him feel loved. I can taste and feel it, too, because
he can.

I am from
Inbetween. I cannot understand the labelnames and the numbers and you
cannot understand where I am from. Where I am, actually, now.
Always. We live - exist is the word? - in Inbetween. I don't mean
to say that Big Ones are not smart enough to get where we are, some
do.

I am not made to be
very smart. I'll try to explain it as best I can. I am made to
listen, to emptysize - you know, when you take the hurt off another
and leave them emptied of it so they can fill up again with better
different stuff. I do pay attention, though. I listen, I can read, not the letters as you call them, but because each word is what it
is and...

Oh my, this is
getting complicated and I am but a bear.

Here is what I
think. The Big Ones get into Inbetween when they love and cherish a
children, specially their own. I see you so close to me when you
pray. Your laughing and singing goes to Inbetween. Gods and Demons
are from Inbetween. It is where everything starts and everything
ends. It is where Guardian angels and wood sprites and cherubs and
fairies wait until they are needed.

I am not saying any
of this right.

My Boy is made of
flesh and blood. He fell once where he goes when he is not here, and
had to get some skitches. He was scared but it didn't hurt very
much. The Furry Big One was with him and they talked about funny
things. My Boy calls him something like Dad. Is that right?

This is what I
think happened. The Furry Big One, Dad?, loves My Boy very much. So
much that he sometimes sees me for what I am. I can feel his love
for me. He looks for me when I am lost and hugs me just right. He
puts me in my vest that the Twinkling Big One made me to make My Boy
happy. It is very handsome. He talks to me. I think he loves me as
a children loves me. This means I can be with him sometimes.

Oh my. There is so
much explainings to tell you and I don't know how to tell you. I am
not really sure who you are. I don't know where or when I am right
now. I am always without the when and the where, Inbetween is like
that, but you Grownouts like to know that stuff. I can see
everywhere My Boy goes. I can go back to anywhere My Boy has been,
even without him. What he calls memries are in what you call past
but it is always my now.

Most Stuffers don't
understand this sort of thinking. They are happy, content is it?, to
just be always now. Some of us last only a short time. I am lucky,
I have seen My Boy get bigger and bigger and have been with him for
many of your years. That's why I can use the words so goodly.

Once a children
sees us, we can see through them. We can see what they see. We can
have the feelings they are having. We can see inside their heads, as
you might say, but truly, inside their heads is Inbetween.

I was trying to say
something. I will tell a story. The Furry... no, dad, was cleaning
My Boy's room. He shares the room with the other My Boy, Kitty's
boy. He's only seen me once and I doubt he remembers. I was very
lost and he found me stuffed into a long chair. He said, Oh!
BearBear, here you are! He saw me, as I am. I could see him seeing
me and I could see his face. The joy, the happy. I saw how he loved
the other My Boy. I could feel his emptysizing, his hope. It is a
good memry.

Bears are not good
storytellers. Perhaps if I tell it in the now.

Dad is picking
things up and moving them. Under many things there is a piece of
curvy leather with tiny holes all around the edge.

He is about to
throw it away. It is in the hand of the other throwaway stuff.

Oh, please don't
throw that away, My Boy loves it.

I am with the dad now. Really, we
are together in Inbetween. I know he goes there, often on his knees.
We have been together here before. My Boy's dad understands me and
stops. He remembers the story. He'd forgotten it. I didn't.

The thing is a half
of a baseball outside. My Boy finds it in the back of the yard. The
dad knows he likes it, but he doesn't understand the all of it. It is
not a just strangely shaped piece of leather. It is more than that.

The dad and I,
together, piece together the parts together. I know My Boy loves it.
I know he is happy when it is in his hand. The dad remembers games
and tossing and catches and hits. He remembers mud and lightning and
joy. And I am back at the now of each moment. We both come to
understand at the same time. It is not the piece of leather that
matters, it is all that it brings with it.

It is a talisman, he thinks. I don't know the word but I know exactly what it means.

He glances at me.
I look very smart in the vest he just put on me. I feel him wink,
feather soft on me, and he smiles.

2 comments:

Your description of empathy will stick with me a good long time, for sure. The whole piece is lovely, but this got me reexamining myself: "you know, when you take the hurt off another and leave them emptied of it so they can fill up again with better different stuff."